Should I? Cooling suggestion for CPU/5850

thermonuke

Distinguished
May 8, 2010
8
0
18,510
Just need some advice from people...

I have 100 bucks to burn in the form of a newegg gift card and have been wanting to cool my system a bit and shoot for some noise reduction.

On top of the Zalman CNPS 10X Performa for my CPU which so far my research shows is a great cooler for the price, I was considering getting the Zalman VF3000A Vga Cooler.

When playing Bad Company 2 my GPU temps get up to around 70c on a 850/1200 OC. Id like the push the GPU a little further if I could. (Asus EAH5850) . Also, CPU temps surpass 60-65c under SuperPi within a couple minutes on stock cooler.

Do any of you feel this would be a worth while upgrade for the cost? Or is the VGA cooler a waste.

Will also be adding 3 120mm case fans to my Antec 300.

Another consideration is I have an Raidmax 730 watt psu.. Yea.. I know... So im looking at a Corsair 750TX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006)

Your advice and guidance is appreciated.

__________________
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE (@ 3.6ghz on stock)
MSI 790FX-GD70
OCZ Obsidian 4GB DDR3
Asus Radeon 5850 @ 850/1200
Raidmax 730W (Ew, I know.)
Antec 300
Windows 7
 

jbakerlent

Distinguished
Your temperatures actually seem fine to me. I personally would just add the case fans. Do you have an Enermax or Raidmax, you said each one once? The first $100 I would spend would be on that PSU if it's a Raidmax...
 

thermonuke

Distinguished
May 8, 2010
8
0
18,510
Sorry for the discrepancy in the PSU's. Its a raidmax 730 Watt.

No I havent modded my 5850, thats on stock volts even though the Asus EAS5850 comes with overvolting built into the card.
The more research Ive done Ive came to the same conclusion as you both that 70c is pretty reasonable actually for a GPU, especially considering that amount of OCing.

Im really leaning towards the PSU considering the horror stories ive read regarding that manufacturer. Also, im about to take a step into the world of water cooling ;)
 

bmosher23

Distinguished
May 9, 2010
1
0
18,510


I have the XFX 5850 BE clocked to 765 and 1125 out of the box. it's smoking fast and runs around 60C under load. I too would go with the power supply, but if you (like me) want to eventually crossfire a second 5850 in the future, you're going to want more total wattage. Here's the PSU I bought when I did the build, not using nearly what it's capable of yet, but when adding that second GPU you'll want the extra juice. It's a great PSU and for the same price at +350W you can't go wrong.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817190025&cm_re=xion-_-17-190-025-_-Product

Cheers,

Bmo
 
You can easily push the card harder without a new fan. For high end gaming like Crysis I enable an OC of 985/1200, slightly higher voltage (1.237V - it was stable in gaming at 1.220 but got artifacting after a couple mins of burn tests). I used MSI Afterburner and did a custom fan set up. It's still quite quiet and in gaming only gets max around 65C, in FurMark tests it gets up to about 78C. I set the fan to max at 70% at 79C, so in general it's much quieter at maybe 40-50% speed. Although I suppose it also depends on your ambient temps, my PC is in the basement and an Antec 900 II case keeps it at 24C - max ever was 28C. It's a Sapphire 5850 btw, and I did not do BIOS flashing or anything like that.
Generally tho I keep it at 700/1100 so that it auto lowers in 2D for extreme quiet and cool running, and for older games like Mass Effect I set it to 775/1125.
 
Can we see a screenshot of that?

Sorry I just have a hard time believing your running a HD5850 at 985/1200 when stock is 725/1000.
Sure
furmark2.jpg

Actually, plenty of people have got theirs the 1000core and 1250mem. I'll try to find the site with the OC chart and edit this post.
 
Well, to be honest I just jumped in head first and this is what I came out with. I didn't have to do any volt mods/BIOS flashing. Just using a Sapphire 5850. I think I've read the XFX needs to be tweaked to get voltage control. I wasn't sure about going up but once I started in Afterburner I couldn't help pushing it more and more. I can't tell you how many times it crashed but now it's totally stable - tho obviously I had to up the voltage by about .15V. I'm a little concerned about longevity with this OC so I only run it for Crysis and NFS Shift at the moment, otherwise the 775/1125 is good enough. I'm planning to try and see what OC I can get without raising voltage, I haven't really tried that yet.